What’s unsaid | Don’t look away from Gaza
RITA BAROUD talks to ERIC REIDY
“I believe that my words can change something.”
Despite intense media coverage over more than a year and a half, the day-to-day, human reality of life in Gaza is difficult to imagine. Often, it is overlooked or obscured, even as the genocidal nature of Israel’s war becomes increasingly difficult to deny.
In a special episode of What’s Unsaid, Eric Reidy, who commissions and edits the coverage of Gaza at The New Humanitarian, speaks to 22-year-old Palestinian journalist Rita Baroud, who was recently able to escape from Gaza.
“I am so exhausted about writing or telling others how we are living our life,” Rita says. “But I believe that my words can change something.”
Since the beginning of Israel’s military campaign, The New Humanitarian has been publishing first-person articles by Palestinians in Gaza. They have been gathered into an ongoing series called “Don’t look away”. Each article is an intimate testament to how individuals’ lives have been upended and thrust into terror and uncertainty by unimaginable violence, deprivation, and intentional starvation. For over a year, Rita has shared her experiences of surviving the winter cold, dealing with forced displacement, and navigating hope and despair during the uncertain ceasefire.
“I always mention that I am so depressed, that I’m so tired, that I’m so close to [quitting] this job,” she says. “But in the end, I always just document everything, because I am a human and I believe in humanity.”
In this podcast, Baroud talks about life in Gaza before 7 October 2023, when she was 20 years old, and Gaza was “so small for the hopes or the dreams” she had. With Gaza under Israeli occupation, she explains “growing up in a place full of wars is like growing up in nothing”. She shares what it felt like to watch her family home, where she lived for 20 years, be destroyed, and how it pushed her into her career. As international journalists were kept out, “we were the only ears and voice that they left in Gaza to talk about Gaza,” she says.
At first, Baroud turned down media requests from global outlets. “I was in shock, because I just lost my house, and now you are asking me to talk about Gaza?” she remembers. “But when I saw it’s not just a war, it’s a genocide – a real genocide – I said, now, I have to do something.”
Rita was recently able to leave Gaza with her family in a rare and limited evacuation organised by France – an experience that was incredibly fraught. Now, in Marseille, she admits, “I don’t do anything but work, writing, documenting.” As she struggles to understand how the destruction of Gaza and the starving and killing of its people continues, she says: “I feel helpless, and writing is the only thing that I have to do right now.”
When speaking about The New Humanitarian’s “Don’t Look Away” series, Baroud expresses disappointment that people outside Palestine have the luxury that “whenever you feel like you are tired because of news in Gaza, you shut your phone down, and you shut off the news, and khalas.” But having survived 573 days of Israel’s war in Gaza, until she was able to evacuate, “all I want to know is why the world can’t do anything?”
New Humanitarian for more
I have been forcibly displaced 12 times by Israel’s war in Gaza
by RITA BAROUD
by RITA BAROUD
‘Everywhere we have gone, Israel’s evacuation orders and bombs have followed.’
As I write this, I’m sitting in a bare, grey room surrounded by the stifling August heat in Deir al-Balah in the central Gaza Strip. The sun’s harsh morning rays pierce through the windows. There are no curtains. Those, like so much else that should be mundane, have become a luxury.
In fact, there are no furnishings in this room at all. Just the worn-out floor and my notebook beside me.
This is the second time I have come to Deir al-Balah as a displaced person during Israel’s unsparing war on Gaza, which has now been going on for more than 10 months. The first time I came was last October, shortly after the war began.
I grew up in al-Rimal neighbourhood in Gaza City. My family’s home was hit by two airstrikes during the first week of the war. Luckily, we were able to escape. But since then, everywhere we have gone, Israel’s evacuation orders and bombs have followed.
We eventually went to Rafah in the south of Gaza, where we thought we might be safe. But Israel invaded that city as well at the beginning of May. It had become a last haven for so many of us, but we were forced to escape once again.
It seems unimaginable, but I have been displaced 12 times in the past 10 months. I feel that I will never have a home or a safe place to stay again. I can no longer imagine living without fearing that I will be displaced and lose everything I have at any moment. It’s like we’ve been trying to escape from death, but death keeps chasing us.
I don’t expect to be able to stay here in Deir al-Balah, either. I’m afraid the Israeli army will return and we will have to flee again.
I am only 21 years old. Before this, I dreamed of finishing my university programme and travelling abroad to study for a Master’s degree. I wanted to see the world and explore different cultures. Now, I feel as if death is near. I have been stripped of hope.
From Rafah to Deir al-Balah
Before Israel invaded Rafah at the beginning of May, my parents, two siblings, and I were trying to leave the Gaza Strip. We were getting ready to pay the $5,000-per-person fee required by an Egyptian company to coordinate our exit. My 18-year-old brother and my grandmother were the only ones able to leave before the invasion began.
Now, the Rafah border crossing has been closed since it was taken over and destroyed by the Israeli army.
The African Mirror for more